Get out of the bitter barn, come play in the hay!!

Lots of reasons for a smile today:

• The above pics! me with a bucket on my head & Kevin playing in the sprinkler..hehe


• The possibility has been presented that Dave, Anna, Steve, Mike & Morgan may come for a visit at the end of May (fingers are crossed!)


• We leave tomorrow for our trek to VA & WV for Dan & Jenn's wedding and to visit with the 'rents


• Which means......in 2 days we get to roll around with Dylan :)


• In 2 weeks the Hertel family will be crossing the pond for a visit in London

whew! perma grin

Barcelona es mi favorito!

Loved Barcelona! Not sure if it was the warm weather, the awesome food, the amazing arcitechture, our luxury penthouse hotel suite, or listening to Kevin small talk in Spanish with the locals that made our trip to Barcelona my favorite or what but - hands down it was.

We arrived at Girona airport before noon on Friday and took an hour bus ride into Barcelona where we walked straight to the beach - to let our bones soak up some of the sunshine. While at the beach we had lunch, a few cervezas & witnessed a purse being stolen by pick-pocketers (only down fall of Barcelona - we saw two happen while we were there). We saved checking into our hotel till a bit later so we could take full advantage of the day light. I pat myself on the back for finding our hotel - it was awesome. We're still not sure if everyones room in that hotel had the space, balconey & view that we had but we were on the top floor and had a big deck with an incredible view. Not too shabby :) We had dinner back down on the beach Friday night and did the whole nine yards - 2 bottles of vino, mussels, paellas, dessert & coffee. Livin la vida loca...haha.

Saturday wasn't as nice a day, weather wise, but we decided to capitalize on our tourist duties and rent bikes to be able to cover more ground. We were mobile!! Kevin was the navigator and guided us through the streets & sites stopping at several historic places including the site of the 1992 Olympic Games. We biked all day & pretty much saw Barcelona. Dinner Saturday night was at a restaurant that was recommended by a guy Kevin works with...another delicious meal.

Sunday we awoke to dark rain clouds but we had planned to visit another park via bike before we had to turn the bikes back in. Ahhh...can't out run the rain clouds...the heavens opened up. The rain matched with the chilly temps was AWESOME (thats me being sarcastic if you didn't pick that up). We aborted the idea of going to the park and decided to return the bikes and head to an indoor activity - the aquarium. But being that the weather affected everyone, everyone else had also decided to go to the aquarium sooo not wanting to wait in the line we settled on coffee & people watching as the sun slowly started to make it's way out again. Alas! a beach day after all. We plopped on the beach for awhile watching the surfers riding the waves created from the storm. We took a leisurely walk to the bus station stopping to have 2 pitchers of sangria and lunch to say adios to Barcelona.

We loved Barcelona - the above pics are just a few of my favs from the tonS of pictures we took ... enjoy! (photo album ---->)

Long Time

April 18th marked 6 months that we have been married....and to think we're still on our honeymoon!!! HA!

I love love.

Mare & I conquer England

I suppose it's possible that Mary & I could have squeezed in a little more sightseeing & a little more visiting in the 5 days she was in England but I definitely know that neither of us would be alive to tell the tale. We had an absolute blast - I showed her the sights on Walney & Barrow, we went to a nearby Castle, took the train to London for the night & then spent a night in Manchester. Going into detail of our visit could take me awhile so Mare & I documented our time together pretty well with pics....(more pics in our photo album --> )

Mare & I at Walney Point

Reminiscing with a few games of Rummy

Made it to London!!

Cab ride back to the hotel in Manchester - visits almost over :(

Captain One Match & Lil Mrs. Muddy Boots

We're baaaack! Had to make the trek back a day early - we ran out of fuel for our stove and so when we ate our last bag of doritos we had no food left that didn't require cooking.

The recap of Fisherground Campsite:

Friday - White knuckle drive. Found the perfect little plot of land to set up shop. Pulled out the foldy chairs, poured a Guiness, cooked beans & dogs, climbed in the tent to wait out the rain shower, played games in the tent while it rained, cooked more beans, rice & dogs, poured more Guiness, Captain One Match made a fire (with one match), slept.

Saturday - Awoke to sheep baa'ing in the neighboring fields, made coffee, eggs & bacon, started our trek up the mountain, wandered up & down mountains, found our selves in a giant, enclosed field with 3 wild pigs, were chased by the 3 wild pigs, had to jump over a stone wall to escape the 3 wild pigs, went back to camp, took a little steam train to a nearby town, had lunch at a pub, made it back to camp, basked/napped in the sunshine, cooked rice & soup, Captain One Match had some Jameson & lil Mrs. Muddy Boots made campfire cosmos.....

Sunday - Awoke too a million items of nature making a ton of noises (sheep, horses, birds, bugs, kids...), realized that we had no more fuel or firewood, ate pieces of bread for breakfast, ate doritos for lunch, laid in the sunshine, decided that we wouldn't be able to survive an evening without food we packed up.

And thats it! Back at home - Kevin has off tomorrow & we must get ready for our first visitor :)

more pics of our weekend in the wilderness in our photo album

Weekend in the wilderness

We've decided to venture outside of solid roof and savory meals and go for a weekend in the woods. A couple of weeks ago we bought a cheapy tent - (turns out £20 goes a long way, looks like it might be pretty decent) we'll see if it keeps the bears and the rain out...and a guy that Kevin works with is letting us borrow a few other necessary camping items. We plan to leave either Thursday evening or Friday morning and return either Sunday or Monday - all is dependent on weather. Yesterday they were calling for rain all weekend but then today it's changed back to being dry?! Anywhooo...the campsite is in the Lakes District so there will be plenty of hikes to do - one in particular we want to conquer - Scafell Pike, Englands highest mountain. Bring on the rice, beans and smore makin'.

The Gadget show last night had two free websites that are pretty neat:

• Spotify.com (similar to Pandora but it's world wide...right now Pandora isn't available in the UK)


• Sumopaint.com (paint on steriods...I made the above pic there. Has some pretty neat features)

Fun times a'comin!

My Mare-Mare is coming to visit!!! WhoopWhoop! A whole week :) Must start planning 7 days-o-fun. April 13th-20th.

YAY!